Day 11 Minimal Activity 18 Miles

Today we did nothing.  We were trying to recover from the really long day we had yesterday. 

We slept in and then went to lunch and ate like pigs.  I was still tired from yesterday but I had to go see about getting my tire fixed. 

The shop we went to, Alaska Fun Center, looked at the tire and recommended I get a new tire because it isn’t normally good practice to drive a motorcycle on a tire that has been patched once.  My tire would have two patches on it. 

I ended up buying a new tire.  They put it on and we are now ready to move on to the south to the Anchorage and Denali Park area. 

Lyle says he is comfortable not going to Deadhorse as it could take up to four days more to accomplish that and he would rather spend those four days seeing different things in Alaska.  Now that he has seen over one hundred miles of the Dalton Highway (two hundred, if you count the trip back), he knows he could get to Deadhorse without any problem so would rather see other things in the time he has left here.  Plus, he says if we take out those four days then we will miss our appointment to meet Sarah Palin and get her to autograph her book for Lyle.  I agreed, we didn’t want to miss that appointment.  Not after he spent the money to buy her book. 

Day 10 Even More Rain 498 Miles

Well, it was raining when we arrived at Tok, Alaska yesterday and it was raining when we left this morning.  It hadn’t rained all night and then just as we got the bikes packed up, down came the rain.  One thing we can be thankful for is that most places we gas up have a cover over the pumps.  Otherwise, it would be really miserable. 

It rained all the way to Fairbanks today.  That made the construction areas really interesting.  The way they do road repair on the highway is to lay down a thick layer of dirt (usually wet dirt that they grade smooth) and while they are doing that, it is a very fun ride for motorcycles to go through a construction area.  Then they lay down a thick layer of gravel and that makes for an even different but equally fun experience. 

Last year when I was up here, one of the construction areas was on a long downhill section of highway that was most unnerving to this motorcycle rider.  I just knew I was going to start sliding before I reached the bottom and end up in a ditch.  I made it down ok but ended up in the oncoming lane of traffic.  Fortunately, at that time, there were no cars coming up the hill.  Otherwise I would have been toast.  This year, that same hill is all nicely paved and we just cruised right down that hill without any problems. 

When we arrived at Fairbanks the first stop was a Wal-Mart so we could buy one gallon gas cans to take with us on the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean.  On one portion of the Dalton, it is over 230 miles without a gas station.  After getting them we stopped for lunch at McDonalds and then headed for the Dalton Highway.  We encountered even more rain getting to the Dalton.  It’s about a fifty mile drive just to get to the start of the highway.  Today, the worker crews were working on a very early part of the highway (actually just a dirt road, not a highway as we know them) and Lyle got to experience some of the really bad side of the Dalton.  Mud!  The crews water down the road real heavy and then they grade the mud flat.  Not too much of a problem for cars but really tough to get through if you’re on a motorcycle.  We made it through that without any major problems though and headed on towards the Yukon River crossing, our first gas stop on the Dalton.  I felt so good when I got there that I had a dish of chocolate ice-cream and it was yummy. 

While there we met a guy on an older BMW R1100GS.  Like our bikes but a couple years older.   He told us that he had just been  to the Denali National Park and when we was cruising through the park, a caribou came out in the road.  He was going to miss the caribou easily but then saw that a car coming the other way didn’t see him on his motorcycle and was going to swerve around the caribou in his lane.  He had a choice to make.  Either hit the caribou or hit the car head on.  He chose the caribou. 

He cracked a couple of ribs and had to spend time in his hotel room for them to heal before he could get back on his motorcycle.  He was moving real slow.  He said he was only going to the Arctic Circle and back to Fairbanks as the Dalton was just too rough for him in his current condition.  I don’t blame him.  That’s exactly what I would do in his situation. 

After gassing up we headed on north towards Coldfoot, our intended stop for the night before going on the last 220 miles of dirt road to Deadhorse.  The road, at this point, was hard packed dirt and we were moving on!  We probably got up to sixty miles per hour in some sections.  Let’s just say, we were wasting no time.  When we got about forty miles north of the Yukon river and still over one hundred miles from Coldfoot, my front wheel started feeling like it was “wandering”.  It felt like the front axle was loose or something.  I pulled over and asked Lyle what my tires looked like, and he said it looked like the rear tire was going flat.  Well, it was. 

So there we were over 45 miles north of the last remnants of civilization and over 100 miles from the next outpost and we have a flat tire.

I have to tell you at this time that Lyle was introduced to the Alaska state bird.  The mosquito!  These things are relentless in their pursuit of blood from warm mammals.  Immediately when you stop moving, there are no, or very few, mosquitoes present.  But within two to three minutes there appears a swarm of them and they can drive a person absolutely insane if you aren’t dressed properly.  Usually when I stop anywhere I leave my helmet and coat on and some times I’ll even leave my gloves on.  But this time we have to work on the tire so that requires some exposed skin.  It is a real challenge to try to do anything when they are swarming around looking for skin to land on.  I was told last year when I was here that a caribou can lose up to 1/3 of its body weight to mosquitoes.  That is almost unbelievable. 

Thankfully, where we stopped just happened to be on the peak of a hill and the wind was blowing strongly and that kept the mosquitoes away a little. 

We looked the tire over and found a hole that looked like it had been made by a small sharp rock.  I got my tire plugging kit out and plugged the hole.  Then we tried to put air in the tire using a small cheap electric air pump from china. It looked like the pump wasn’t working as the tire would not air up. 

Just about that time, a guy on a 1200 GS stopped to see if he could help.  He had a very old bicycle air pump and we tried that to see if we could get the tire to air up.  It didn’t work either.  Now I decided it was time to take the tire off the bike and take a closer look to see if maybe there was more than one hole in it.  I found another small hole and plugged that one too.  Now we used the bicycle pump and put air in the tire and it looked like it was holding well.  Meanwhile, the wind has died down a little and the mosquitoes are really beginning to multiply. 

Now it is decision time.  We are over three hundred miles from Deadhorse and I have a tire with two plugs in it.  And we can’t be one hundred percent sure that the tire isn’t slowly losing air still.  Plugs are never considered safe to ride on for any length of time.  They are thought of as more of a temporary fix until you get to a place that can patch the time.  It’s late and if we leave right now, we won’t get back to Fairbanks until after midnight. 

We decided the best course of action is to load most of the weight on Lyle’s bike and we head back to Fairbanks.  We made it back to Fairbanks without any more problems and found a hotel room.  By the time we got checked in and in our rooms, it was after 4am.  That was a long day! 

That was the longest ride I can remember ever taking.  I was so tired coming back to Fairbanks, that I had problems concentrating.  And on a road like the Dalton Highway that is not a good thing. 

So, I can say that the Dalton Highway took two hostages today but we were eventually able to escape and return to civilization.  Free, but defeated in out attempt to conquer the road all the way to Deadhorse. 

Maybe next year

Tomorrow we head south to the Denali National Park and then on to the Anchorage area.  We will keep a sharp lookout for caribou along the way. 

Day 9 More Rain 292.3 Miles

Today was a short day due to the conditions we had to travel through. 

The day started out perfect.  I visited the little known bakery in Haines Junction and had one of the most scrumptious sticky buns you have ever tasted.  It was “to write home about”. 

We traveled from Haines Junction to Tok,  AK.  Our main problem today was rain, which started about an hour after leaving Haines Junction and continued all the way to Tok. 

The next problem was the construction zones.  Really slow going and moderate gravel and mud due to the rain.  I am still not able to reach any semblance of a Zen state when approaching gravel.  Maybe I’ll never get there.  And when you have constant rain on your face shield, making it more difficult to see the road, it just makes it worse.  One of today's construction zones had a long period of fairly heavy gravel and that was not good.  The front end of the bike started into a “wobble” several times  before I reached the end.  From my research, I’m told that this wobble can often times end up with a “face plant” if it gets too radical.  I believe it.  Let’s just say the “pucker factor” was rather high several times today.  I wonder if a GPR Stabilizer would help in this case?

The third problem today was “frost heaves”.  The road freezing and thawing many times during the winter, causes the roadway to develop big “speed bumps”.  I was testing the GS suspension quite vigorously a few times today.  It passed with flying colors. 

The forth problem today was the fact that some form of motor home tour group was on its way to Alaska at the same time we were.  So you have a seemingly endless stream of big ocean liners on wheels going real slow because of the frost heaves and Lyle and I trying to pass them one by one.  At the same time, trying to contend with the frost heaves and the road construction.  All while trying to see through rain drops on our face shields. 

There was one very upsetting event today.  We were running along at a nice clip (we can speed, now that we’re out of Canada) and all of a sudden a guy on a Gold Wing, pulling a trailer, went whizzing by us like we were standing still.  Well, maybe not that bad, but he went by us pretty fast.  Then I could see up ahead where there was another long stretch of gravel coming up.  So, I’m thinking “we’re on BMW GSes and he’s on a Honda tank.  This is where he gets his comeuppance”.  I have to tell you, this guy did not even slow down for the gravel.  I was totally amazed.  He is either a multiple winner of the Dakar Rally or the Gold Wing was a trike.  Since I didn’t see three wheels on that bike, I have to assume he was one good bike rider.  Any way, it turns out that we were out GSed by a GW.  Humbled I am. 

We arrived in Tok, Alaska and immediately tried to find a room.  Well, as usual, there was something going on that made rooms in short supply.  In this case, it was a bunch of Bentley owners driving to the big event in Anchorage.  They were coming from all over and they were ALL driving their old Bentleys to the event.  These were cars made in the twenties and thirties mostly. Now, you may not find this too amazing except for the fact that the majority of these Bentleys do not have tops.  They might as well have been on motorcycles.  When it rained, they got wet.  Maybe three or four of them were models that actually had tops on them.  The rest were just open “roadsters”.  The drivers and their passengers were dressed just like Lyle and I.  Some of them were wearing attire more suited to a Nor'easter but they seemed to be having fun.  

Since this was such a short day, we may try and make it from here to Coldfoot, Alaska tomorrow.  Normally, we would stay in Fairbanks a day and then head to Coldfoot the following day.  It all depends on the weather tomorrow and the forecast for the following three days.  It the weather is too bad, we’ll just go to the Arctic Circle and come back to Fairbanks. 

This is another place without internet so this post won’t go out until we can find an “open” hotspot. 

Day 8 A Much Slower Day Thanks to our New Friends!!

364.5 Miles with a moving average of only 56.2mph due mainly to our slower travel rate and also the fog in the mountains and the construction zones we had to stop for. 

I have to tell you I love this Zumo!  I can’t ever imagine taking a trip without it.  It’s not always one hundred percent accurate but it sure beats trying to read a map while you’re cruising down the highway or trying to thread downtown traffic in a city you know absolutely nothing about.  My Nolan N-102 bluetooth enabled helmet and my Zumo and I’m ready to go anywhere.  I don’t care much for the Garmin route building software MapSource but the hardware is excellent now that they’ve ironed out the bugs. 

Today we travelled from Watson Lake (home of the Sign Post Forest) to Haines Junction with a little side trip in Whitehorse to find tools. 

While it is a known fact that BMW motorcycles never fail, I am just a tool kind of guy and it makes me feel good to have tools that I probably won’t ever use on my bike but I like to look at them.  :)  And now that I have a wrench that will fit the bolt that goes into the transmission shifting pawl and links to the foot shifter, I feel MUCH better.  :)  If anything were to ever happen such as the shift lever not being connected to the transmission, I would be in a position to readily fix such a failure.  But,then I day dream again.

Today was a nice day for the entire travel time.  Sun all the way. 

We stopped for breakfast at another one of those ubiquitous campgrounds you find all along the Alaska Highway.  They get their power from generators, usually their water from a water delivery truck, and they contain a gas station, a restaurant, RV park, cabins, camping and probably a Chinese laundry too. :)  They all have satellite TV and high speed wi-fi.  And I’m thinking they are all one tick away from turning into Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”.  Can you imagine living the rest of your life in the wilderness like some modern day Grizzly Adams?  Heeerrrree’s Johnny ! ! 

I had a cinnamon bun for breakfast and Lyle had the kitchen sink.    This is the same guy who said “I never eat breakfast”!

This camp ground is owned by a John Deere nut.  The guy painted his porch on his mobile home in JD colors, the playground swing set, the picnic tables and chairs and other stuff I can’t remember.  One serious JD person.  What did I say?  TICK

We met a group of Harley riders on their way to the Arctic Circle.  They asked what the road was like above the circle and I told them dirt and gravel.  They weren’t planning on going up it, just to the circle and back home in southern California.

After we left them at the gas stop, they later caught up to us and passed us.  For some reason I wasn’t in the mood to go fast today.  Maybe tomorrow.  After all, before today I was in British Columbia and now I’m in Yukon Territories and the slate has been wiped clean.  It’s almost like someone took all the points off my drivers license and I can start building them up again.     :)

We easily found a room in Haines Junction and are turning in.  Lyle wants to make it to Fairbanks tomorrow and that is five hundred miles from here.  Another long day ahead!

Did I say ZUMO ROCKS ! !

Day 7 With a Little of Everything 486.7 Miles

Moving average was only 54.8 today.  We were slow.  And you’ll find out why in a minute. 

Today, we saw several animals, met new friends, experienced weather that we had not seen so far on this trip, encountered many road workers, got told there “were no rooms at the inn”, met even more new friends, saw ladies of the evening (didn’t talk to them though, and they weren’t the new friends we met!), What a busy day. 

Where to start?  Well, with our first new friends we met.  We were just going down the road (at our regular elevated speeds) and up over the hill some people were coming towards us and they wanted to meet us.  Now how they knew we were people they would want to meet just boggles my mind because they were at least a half mile ahead of us and coming towards us.  A real puzzle. 

Anyway, as soon as they saw us they put on these real bright lights they had and I knew right away that they wanted to meet us.  They even made a u-turn in the middle of the highway to come back and see us.  Figuring I would make it easy for them to meet us, I pulled over and waited for them to catch up.  It took a while but they were persistent and finally got to us. 

They got out of their car and asked us how we were doing and I told them we were doing fine and asked how were they doing.  They asked where we were from and where we were going and I told them and then they said a most peculiar thing.  They said “the speed limit on this highway is 100 kph and we clocked you doing 124.5 kph”. 

I was so thankful for that information I almost asked them if they would write out a document certifying that speed.  Thankfully, I didn’t say anything because they were so kind they had already planned on giving it to me. 

I did try to tell them that the reason we were going that speed was because Lyle was following me too fast.  I told them that if he hadn’t have been following so fast, I think we would have only been going 100kph.  They didn’t seem too interested in my explanation though so we took their silly papers and cranked the bikes up and did wheelies on down the road. 

After looking at the documents in my room later, I determined that what they gave me was a “faulty equipment” ticket that in the comments had the words “warning for speed”.  I am only guessing but I would say the faulty equipment they were referring to was my speedometer.  I’ll have them know Garmin is my speedometer and nothing is more accurate!

We saw three moose today.  One right by the side of the road and the others a little distance away.  We saw buffalo too but not on the road like the last time I was here.  We saw one small black bear cub off in the grass by himself and I saw another bigger one later on about twenty yards off the road.  When we were going by one of the lakes a stone sheep with a really small kid walked out in the road and just stood by a cliff.  Like the mom was saying, “go ahead junior, you can do it”.  He didn’t like that cliff.  Straight down from the road. 

We went through a pass today that was all dense fog.  I mean really dense!  We had to follow a truck through it and at times you couldn’t see the truck and then there were sections of the road where they had repaved some spots and had not painted the lines back in the middle.  I was getting really nervous on those sections as I could see the road right in front of the bike but didn’t know where the middle of the road was or whether I was going towards the drop offs on the side or not. 

Also a lot of rain today.  It started out bright and sunny and then developed into rain later in the day. 

Lyle got to ride across his first “grated iron” bridge today.  It wasn’t a bad one though.  Also, he got to ride through our first “construction zone” on the Alaska Highway.  It was dirt with a little mud.  Not too bad either. 

We were feeling our age a little bit and we stopped for gas at a little camp grounds along the highway.  While there we met a couple from Wichita, Kansas.  Now get this; they started out from Wichita nine weeks ago riding recumbent  trikes, both pulling a small trailer.  That’s a three wheel bicycle with two wheels in the front and one in the rear and you pedal it while sitting down like in a chair.  NINE WEEKS!  You can google and see how far it is from Wichita to Cold River Camp in BC.  Unbelievable ! ! !.  So Lyle and I quit feeling our age right then as this couple were both older than we are by far!  Every time a person gets to thinking that they are doing something special, you meet someone who is truly doing something special.  Then you feel a little humbled. 

And finally to, what I know you’ve all been waiting for, the working girls.  Well, there is currently a forest fire going on north of Watson Lake and a lot of  fire fighters are in town and they have all the rooms booked so we couldn’t  get a room at the place we wanted to stay.  But, since we were there, we had a late lunch in their restaurant.  From our observations while having lunch, all the fire fighters coming to town, also brought in waves of working girls.  I don’t see the correlation, but I know those girls weren’t in Watson Lake last year when I was here.  And they certainly didn’t come to town because Lyle and I were passing through. 

There were even two of them out at the Sign Post Forest when I was putting up the Ozarks Country Living sign.  They seemed to be everywhere in Watson Lake. 

We finally found two rooms at a little camp grounds just north of Watson Lake.  The camp grounds is owned by a Czech who used to live in Praha about thirty years ago.  His name is Vlad (short for Vladimir).  He said “I used to live in Prague” and I corrected him by saying, “you used to live in Praha”.  He agreed that Praha is the correct name for what we gringos call Prague.  He’s just been living here so long he started talking like us. 

We took the last two rooms he had and turned in early.

Day 6 What a Sunny Day 423.1 Miles

Today started out bright and sunny and a little cool.  It stayed that way all day long. 

Today we made it to Dawson Creek.  The starting point of the original Alaska Highway.  We stopped at the “zero mile” marker and took the obligatory tourist shots.  Lyle by his motorcycle with the sign in the background and me with my bike and the sign in the background. 

Then we had lunch where I introduced Lyle to Tim Hortons.  For those of you who have never been to Canada before, Tim Hortons is considered a national treasure in Canada.  It’s sort of like a combination of Dunkin Donuts and Panera in the U.S.   Everyone in Canada loves Tim Hortons.  It was one of Sharon’s favorite places to eat when we lived in Toronto. 

If any of you are tracking my SPOT ME and you noticed that the signal stopped somewhere northwest of Dawson Creek and stayed in one place for a while, I have to tell you there must have been something wrong with the SPOT ME because we were riding BMW bikes and they would never be stopped in one spot for any length of time.  Especially not stopped because something came loose or quit working. 

In fact, when I get home I’m going to complain to the SPOT ME people about this problem.  The signal should be updated regularly and should never make it look like a person stopped somewhere for some reason ! @ ! !

For some reason (when I have more time tomorrow, I’ll figure out what the reason was and let you know) it took us longer to get to where we are than was anticipated.  It’s like the clocks just lost almost an hour somewhere.  Anyway, we made it to Pink Mountain (sort of like the Ava area, if you get my drift.  Why else would it be called “Pink” Mountain? )  

They have a restaurant here and we both had the specials.  I had spaghetti with meat sauce which filled a large dinner plate. Plus two LARGE pieces of texas toast.  I was able to finish half of one piece of bread and about 1/3 of the spaghetti.  WAY too much food for one person.  Lyle had a hamburger steak and one of his sides was pasta.   Well, his pasta was the very same spaghetti that I was having as my main course.  But he had enough spaghetti to feed two people.  He didn’t finish his mail either.  We just had to quit. 

We didn’t see a single critter along the way today.  I hope they’re out tomorrow.  Lyle and I agreed that if we can find a bear along the way, we’ll stop and I’ll get a picture of Lyle feeding the bear a piece of his famous jerky.  That promises to  be one great picture.   I won’t be able to compose the picture exactly right though as everything will have to be done while I’ll sitting on my running motorcycle with my hand on the clutch and the camera in the other hand. 

I’ve determined that I made my route incorrectly.  I used Garmin software and it must default to “bypass cities” mode.  This means that it never wants to take you through a city.  It will go miles around a city to bypass it.  That’s not all bad until you think about the fact that most gas stations are actually IN the city.  I’ll now have to program the Garmin manually to fix this.  We want to at least, go close to the cities. 

Tomorrow we head for Watson Lake (signpost city) and put up our real estate sign for all visitors to see.  Assuming they have time to look at all of the thousands of signs. 

There is no internet here at Pink Mountain so this won’t go out today.  Actually they do have internet, they just have HughesNet and it doesn’t happen to be working at the moment.  If I had brought my troubleshooting tools, I could offer to fix it for them.

Tomorrow is another long day so I’m off to  bed. 

Day 5 Nice! (Some of the time!) 995,9km

Had you going there for a minute, didn’t I?  Yes we had to switch to kilometers now since we’re in Canada.  It’s equal to 618.9 miles.  A long day and I’m really tired now. 

Moving average was only 60.9 since we’re now in Canada with its creeping speed limits.  We saw three different radar setups within the first two hours of getting across the border. 

I could write about a lot of things but I’m going to bed. 

I will say that I thought we were in the twilight zone going through Calgary today.  There were monster black clouds hanging over Calgary as we approached the city.  Just when I thought we were going to miss them in one direction or another, then the highway would turn directly into the black clouds.  You could see the rain coming down from those clouds for miles. 

Then just before we came into the rain, the road would turn again and head into a clear spot.  This happened maybe five times and by the time it was over we had “threaded the needle” though most of the storms and were on the North side of the city. 

But, we weren’t able to miss the last one and that brought another first for me.  Hail, while riding a motorcycle.  It was only BB size but still it was the real thing.  Along with the rain, it was another bad weather day for us. 

We were having dinner in the local DQ here in Whitecourt and an older guy asked us if we had the bikes from Missouri.  He said he was a minister, originally from Illinois, and used to live in Monet.  His wife always wanted to live near Branson.  Just another example of just how small this world is. 

I’m off to bed. 

Day 4 Nice! (Most of the time!) 578.7 Miles

When we started out from Spearfish, SD the weather was overcast and cold (balmy to Lyle) and later in the day the sun came out and it was looking nice.  Still cold, but nice looking weather.  It was probably in the mid 40’s or so.  It was cold enough that Lyle told me if it got any colder, he was going to have to put his jacket on.  A t-shirt was almost not enough. 

We stopped for lunch at a KFC near the Custer Battlefield.  It was not a nice experience.  Lyle said his mash potatoes and gravy should have been called “gravy and gravy”.  They didn’t have any coleslaw (too early in the day), And no ice “you can go over to the c-store and get some ice, they don’t mind”.  And the whole place was dirty. 

The area around the Custer Battlefield is mainly settled by “First Nation” people. 

The KFC had panhandlers on the corner with a sign saying, “need money for gas, trying to get home”.   They looked like they had been living under a bridge for several weeks.  And a large fifth wheel trailer that took up half the parking lot with a flat tire. 

When we were getting on the bikes to leave, a blonde walked by and said, “Pretty cold day to be riding” and Lyle said “It wouldn’t be with you setting on the back of my bike”.  The only problem was he didn’t say it loud enough for her to hear.  :)  I’m going to have to get him to speak up if he wants people to hear what he’s saying. 

As we approached Billings, Montana, we ran into more rain.  It seems like we just can’t get away from this front. 

And for all my OCD friends, don’t bother checking the SPOT ME web page to try and figure out how fast we were going.  I’ll save you the trouble.  We were going fast!

Well, we were going fast until we came up behind a Wyoming Highway Patrol car in the left lane running at exactly the speed limit.  I thought about passing him in the right lane but reconsidered. I didn’t want to have to waste time in a local jail trying to explain just why I wanted to pass a patrol car running at the speed limit. 

The most exciting part of the day came when we got north of Billings, Montana and came to highway 12.  Last year when I was at that point, there was a thunderstorm coming from the west so I went on an east loop to the north to miss the storm.  This time Lyle wanted to go west instead so off we went. 

We came to highway 191 and discovered a very large sign that said, “motorcycle rider advisory, dirt road, please use an alternate route.  Well, I thought about going down the road to see just how bad it was but then when we stopped at a convenience store, they said the state was widening the highway and the detour just went way out in a pasture to bypass the construction.  They said it was all mud!

We ended up going even further west to find an alternative route.  We ended up on highway 89 which takes you around and through the Little Belt mountains for about 60 miles.  What an experience!.  It would have been a perfect ride on a warm day when the roads were dry.  But when we went on it, there was rain, and snow and even colder temperatures.  I thought any minute we were going to round a turn and there would be snow on the road. 

But we made it to Great Falls, Montana and got a room at the Motel 6.

Oh, I almost forgot, when we got on highway 12 and started east going towards highway 89, we hadn’t gone very far when all of a sudden,  WHAP!  A fairly large bird of some kind (it was black with some white under the wings) hit me smack in the middle of my windshield.  I didn’t even have time to blink, it was so quick.  Lyle said he could see it going towards me but I didn’t see anything until it hit the windshield.  It didn’t break anything so we continued on. I would have stopped to take a picture of the dead bird but we had just passed a large tree trimming truck at a high rate of speed and I didn’t want them to get in front of us again.  

Our “moving average” today was only 64.7 mph.  I guess the number went down because we had to go so slow in the Little Belt mountains.  Otherwise, I think our moving average would be closer to 80 mph.  :)  Only kidding Sharon!!!  Our driving time (or moving time) was 8 hours 56 minutes.  Considering all the rain we saw today, I think that was pretty good.  Total elapsed time was 13 hours and 21 minutes.  A long day!  And I’m tired and going to bed. 

Day 3 Long Miles 0.0 miles

Yes, today we traveled from Spearfish, SD to Spearfish, SD.  The official release statement for publication states that we were stranded here by a snow storm in the area of our next destination, Billings, Montana.  While the story is a little more complicated than that, “that’s our story and we’re sticking to it”. 

We were starting out of town and ran across a couple of Harleys stranded along the side of the road and we decided to tow them back to town.  When we got back to town, they were so happy and excited because they said their Harleys had never gone that fast before. 

Anyway, our plan tomorrow is to check with the Montana Highway Patrol and see what the road conditions are before leaving.  Hopefully, the storm has moved off to the east by the time we leave here. 

Day 2 _A Much Better Day ! 540.3 Miles

But only if you like to start your riding day in the rain and also end it in the rain.  I was in a much better mood today as I had a great nights sleep.  No chainsaws in evidence anywhere!!!

Lyle and I got a much earlier start this morning.  We met for breakfast at 6am and had a muffin and then we were on our way.  In the rain!  Lyle elected to start the day without his insert in his Kilimanjaro jacket.  Bad Plan!

As I had forgotten my waterproof riding gloves, we made a quick stop in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at the Honda shop and we both bought a pair.  Then it was on to the west, still in the rain. 

At a gas stop in western SD, we met another rider coming from the west.  When he took off his helmet, we were surprised by the fact that he was a she.  I’m going to guess she was around 45 or so and riding a sport bike.  She said she had just come from the badlands area and was headed south.  She was decked out with all the right gear and she was alone.  I guess I’m still old fashioned (after all, I am old) as I was surprised that a woman her age would be out riding a motorcycle on a day like this, all by herself.  Nothing wrong with that picture at all but it took me by surprise.  Lyle too.  It reminded me of Margaret from Tasmania.  I think Lyle wanted to ask her out on a date but he was embarrassed because I was there.  

To sum up the day, it was rain, at times fairly hard, a little sun (maybe a half  hour in the middle of South Dakota, but still very cold) and temperatures in the low forties and strong winds most of the day.  There was probably two hours of riding when there wasn’t rain.  Plus, when we got to the western end of South Dakota the thick fog moved in.  I was COLD the whole day. 

Lyle summed up his observations of the day so:

“I can’t believe how long it took to get across South Dakota going 90 miles an hour!”

In case you’re one of my OCD friends and you happen to check the mileage between Sloan, IA and Spearfish, SD and see that it is less than 540.3 miles, well, I’m here to tell you that being the macho man I am, I don’t always do what Garmin Girl tells me.  I missed a turn and we had to backtrack a bit :)

 

If you want to track my SPOT ME, you can go to:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0d6tlvZyZMhlgIBFzq6aGNktknIb9CyHk

Day 1 of the Road Trip (499.1 Miles)

Made it as far as Sloan, Iowa, home of the WinneVegas Casino.  I don’t know how we did it either.  I was so tired the whole way.  I only got about three hours of sleep last night due to the “chain sawing” going on in my bedroom. 

I don’t really have anything to report as I was too tired to notice much of anything.  I’m amazed we made it through Kansas City and Council Bluffs.  Give all the credit to Garmin Girl.  I had to stop twice to take a nap or I was going to fall off the bike I was so tired. 

Lyle forgot to bring any sunscreen and at the end of the day he looked a little red even with his helmet on.  He said he was also tired but he couldn’t have been near as tired as I am.  It was pretty hot for a good part of the way and he ended up taking his jacket off and riding in his t-shirt. 

The bikes did well.  Mine averaged right at 40 miles per gallon for the entire way.  I don’t think Lyle kept track of his. 

Garmin Girl says we traveled 499.6 miles but my odometer says we only went 457 miles.  One of them is wrong.  My money is on the odometer on bike being wrong.  Garmin Girl is much too smart to make an error like that. 

Our overall speed was 50.1mph and our moving average was 65.2mph.  In case you were wondering.  That means we must have been moving a lot faster than 65 most of the time. 

I hope I got everyones email address added to the blog.  If I didn’t get your email in there and you aren’t getting these updates, then let me know :)

We’re supposed to meet for breakfast at 6am tomorrow so I’m going to bed.

We stopped for lunch in Belton at the Wendys.  But Sharon already knew that without me telling her.  Plus, if you were tracking us on the SPOT ME web page, you saw that we were stopped for a while in Belton. 

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.  I’m off to bed.

In case you missed it, this is the web page for tracking:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/gogl.jsp?glId=0d6tlvZyZMhlgIBFzq6aGNktknIb9CyHk

New Tires

I’ve put the new tires on both our bikes now and I think all that is left is to pack the bikes and away we go.  I put new front brakes on mine and Lyles bike at the same time and new rear brakes on mine. 

The tire changes went fairly smoothly.  I had problems seating the bead on one tire and, though I hate to admit it, I had to take it down to the local tire changer to get a lesson in seating beads.  He had it seated in about ten seconds and I took away two pearls of wisdom from that.  One is to use LOTS of soapy water and two, take the valve stem “innards” out when trying to seat the bead.  It helps the air go in faster which is what you need to start the whole process.  And, he didn’t charge me any thing for the lesson. 

While doing the tire changes here in my shed wasn’t super tough, I would really hate to try that on the side of the road somewhere North of the Arctic Circle.  It would not be easy at all!!

For my blog this year I’m using a new tool from Microsoft called “Windows Live Writer” to post to the blog.  I had a problem last year when trying to post to the blog when I didn’t have Internet Access.  The Google blogging  tool doesn’t have the capability to post to their blog in “offline” mode.  Using Live Writer, I should have that capability.  In fact, I’m testing Live Writer with this entry.  We’ll see how well it works. 

This trip I’m also taking along a “SPOT ME” device so friends and family can track my progress (or lack thereof, depending on the weather) while I’m traveling.  It works off the satellite system rather than cell towers so it will work anywhere in the world.  It only has four buttons on it.  An on/off button and a button that when you push it, it automatically sends an email to anyone you have set up in the system that basically says “I’m ok and here is where I am”. 

The next button when pushed, causes a service call to be sent to the nearest tow/service center to where you are, telling them that you are broke down and exactly where you are. 

The final button when pushed sends a “distress call” to the nearest 911 center to your current position that says, “I need an ambulance (or helicopter, depending on exactly where you are) right now and it gives them your exact location.  Hopefully, that button will show no usage at all when I return home. 

It can also be set to “track me” mode (which I will be doing once we get started) and the device sends out a marker beacon to the home system every ten minutes.  That beacon gives your exact position and gives a link that when clicked, brings up a Google map showing where you are.  The system holds these beacons for ten days and then deletes them.  So, you can see where I’ve been for the last two weeks at ten minute intervals. 

I’m telling everyone that if they are tracking me and I seem to be going down a highway in Alaska somewhere and then all of a sudden the signal starts moving off at right angles to the road, there is a possibility that my “SPOT ME” device has been eaten by a bear!  Then, they can track the bear until the batteries go dead!

Departure Time Approaches

I've completed most of my "pre-flight" tasks and in the final stretch. I've changed out my driving lights for a larger type which, hopefully, will last longer then the last set. The cheaper halogen lights from China are just about worthless. When I checked them after the return from Alaska last year, they were both burned out.  

I still don't have my cruise control installed and I'm not sure if I'll have the time to do it before I leave. I really need it for the highway driving but it is extremely difficult to install on the BMW R1150GS. I'll make one more attempt to make the time to try the installation.  

Lyle and I went over to Misty Mountain Sheepskin Company near Branson last week and we both came away with black shorthair sheepskin seat covers for our GSes. Lyle is already sure he is going to like his but I still have reservations. It seems like it changes my seating position slightly and I'm not sure how that will play out over long distances.  

While we were at the sheepskin company I noticed he has some pictures and a map of one riders travels and I asked him about it. He said that was a guy he sold a sheepskin to that when he came back from his trip he gave him the pictures and maps to hang on his shop wall. It turns out this guy from West Plains, Missouri (about 40 miles SouthEast of here) took a trip that went from West Plains to Deadhorse Alaska back to West Plains then to the Northern tip of Maine and back and then to Key West and back. This is quite the trip in itself but the most amazing part of it is that the guy did all of this on a 1948 Harley Davidson Knucklehead motorcycle he had restored to original condition. As any Harley owner will tell you (if they have ever owned one of these motorcycles) it was very hard back in the '50s to go more than 100 miles on one of these bikes without having to do some type of work on it before you got back home.  

Ed Young here in Mountain Grove tells me about how he would work on his knucklehead all week long so he could ride it on the weekend and then start all over again the next Monday. For someone to ride one of these for, what must have been, over twenty thousand miles, borders on the unbelievable. I'd like to know how many parts he used during that trip.  

It looks like we'll both be making the trip on Michelen Anakee II tires. This is a new version of the old Anakee on-road/off-road tire and it's supposed to have greatly increased tread life. We'll see. I've measured the tread of the new tires and they are 10/32 on the rear and 6/32 on the front. When we get to Fairbanks I'll check it again and see how much wear we got in that 4,000 miles or so.  

We don't have a firm route yet and we may just "wing it". Generally, we are thinking about going up the same way I went last year through South Dakota, Wyoming, and crossing into Canada at the Sweetgrass border crossing. Then up the "Eastern" route through Canada to Alaska. Coming back we will probably do the "Western" route back to the U.S. into Washington state and down into Oregon before turning back towards Missouri. I believe we will be around 11,000 miles by the time we get home. Hopefully, on one set of tires. That could be pushing it and we'll have to watch the treadwear pretty close.  

Departure date is either the 5th or 6th of June.  

Plans

I did this last year, all the way to Prudhoe Bay.  My brother-in-law, Lyle wanted to go with me last year but couldn't get off work.  He's retiring this year and he's turning 65 at the same time.  Is that reason enough to head out on an adventure?  

I can't help but think of the movie "Wild Hogs".  I'll have to see about getting an Apple tat!

As our planning develops, I'll add more info.  

I just hope the weather is better this year than last.  That was almost too much.  Rain, rain, more rain.  Mud, mud, more mud.